: Alman Ordusu İkinci Dünya Savaşı'nda Aşırı Gergin mi?
In 1985, English historian Max Hastings published a [provocative ](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1985/05/05/their-wehrmacht-was-better-than-our-army/0b2cfe73-68f4 -4bc3-a62d-7626f6382dbd/)Washington Post article, titled simply: _Their Wehrmacht was Better Than Our Army._ The title refers to the German armed forces during World War II. Not mincing words, Hastings writes the following: > The inescapable truth is that Hitler's Wehrmacht was the outstanding > fighting force of World War II, one of the greatest in history. For many > years after 1945, this seemed painful to concede publicly, partly for > nationalistic reasons, partly also because the Nazi legions were fighting > for one of the most obnoxious regimes of all time. Hastings goes on to cite the work of American Colonel Trevor Dupuy, who conducted detailed statistical analysis of the battles of the Second World War. Dupuy concluded the following: > On a man for man basis, German ground soldiers consistently inflicted > casualties at about a 50 percent higher rate than they incurred from the > opposing British and American troops under all. This was true > when they were attacking and when they were defending, when they had a local > numerical superiority and when, as was usually the case, they were > outnumbered, when they had air superiority and when they did not, when they > won and when they lost. > > Trevor Dupuy, as cited by Max hastings This week, we're going to examine the historical narrative of the overpowering military power of the German Reich, as championed by Max Hastings and other historians. Is Hastings correct in his assessment? But more than that, we're going to examine the history of the idea of Germany's overwhelmingly superior army. Where did the idea come from, and what implications does it have today?